


Wordpicture: Edison Carter

by Deannie



Series: Wordpictures [4]
Category: Max Headroom (TV)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2003-07-17
Updated: 2003-07-17
Packaged: 2017-12-19 06:51:09
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 379
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/880730
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Deannie/pseuds/Deannie
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There's a fine line--or indeed, no line at all--between death and cancellation.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Wordpicture: Edison Carter

He'd like to think that it's the search for truth that gives him strength. He'll tell anyone that, no matter what the government or the networks say, right is right and wrong, wrong. He'll even believe it himself... most of the time.  


But there's a piece of him that disagrees. The media is truth, it says. The difference between "Machine Gun Mike" and a corpse in the street is only a matter of ratings. There's a fine line--or indeed, no line at all--between death and cancellation.  


And the fact that, alone at night after a long day of tracking criminals that the higher ups don't want found--criminals that may _be_ the higher ups themselves--Edison drinks a beer and sometimes weeps and sometimes thinks seriously of throwing his camera out the window and joining Reg and the other blanks means nothing in the face of media's truth.  


Because truth needs its lies, doesn't it? _The Edison Carter Show_ is just a convenient smoke screen. Makes _them_ look good. Makes the media true again--or at least paints over the ugly bits with a digital national flag...  


The part he hears in those dark nights belongs to a head in a box--a head that looks like his. A head that's absorbed by the media itself, that's been digitally created and let loose. A nut, running the asylum.  


 _They_ listen to Max. He's a voice of the future--a voice of the ratings and the pulse point of the public. Network executives who have seen Edison as a necessary evil see his doppelganger as a god.  


And Max says what Edison won't admit. He tells the people what they think. He knows their fears and their problems, and he knows that, come hell, high water, or--God forbid--power outage, the people will listen to a head in a box before they'll listen to flesh and blood.  


And so Edison stays. He stays and fights and tries to make sure that the God of Man: Television doesn't take too many lives. It isn't truth he's searching for, after all. It's reality.  


And sometimes Max, a head in a box and a brain of media, helps him.  


And sometimes, the irony of that fact almost hurts.

* * *  
The End


End file.
